The Wakamba, who liked to fight, really fight, not Masai fight, which is, usually, a mass hysteria which cannot come off except under the influence of drugs, lived at lower than subsistence level. They had always had their hunters and now there was no place for them to hunt. They loved to drink and drinking was strictly controlled by tribal law. They were not drunkards and drunkenness was severely punished. Meat was a staple of their diet and it was gone now and they were forbidden to hunt it. Their illegal hunters were as popular as smugglers in England in the old days or as those people were who brought good liquor into the United States in Prohibition.
It had not been this bad when I had been there many years before. But it had not been good. The Wakamba were completely loyal to the British. Even the young men and the bad boys were loyal. But the young men were upset and things were not simple at all. The Mau Mau were suspect because it was a Kikuyu organization and the oaths were repulsive to the Wakamba. But there had been some infiltration. There was nothing about this in the Wild Animal Protection Ordinance. I had been told by G.C. to use my common sense, if any, and that only shits got in trouble. Since I knew that I could qualify for that class at times I tried to use my common sense as carefully as possible and avoid shithood so far as I could. For a long time I had identified myself with the Wakamba and now had passed over the last important barrier so that the identification was complete. There is no other way of making this identification. Any alliance between tribes is only made valid in one way.
Now, with the rain, I knew that everyone would be less worried about their families and if we got some meat everyone would be happy. Meat made men strong; even the old men believed that. Of the old men in camp I thought Charo was the only one who might possibly be impotent and I was not sure about him. I could have asked Ngui and he would have told me. But it was not a proper thing to ask and Charo and I were very old friends. Kamba men, if they have meat to eat, retain their ability to make love well after they are seventy. But there are some sorts of meat that are better for a man than others. I do not know why I had started to think about this. It had started with the killing of the kongoni the day we had first seen the track of the huge Rift Valley escarpment lion and then it had wandered around like an old man’s tale.
“What about going out and getting a piece of meat, Miss Mary?”
“We do need some don’t we?”
“Yes.”
“What have you been thinking about?”
“Kamba problems and meat.”
“Bad Kamba problems?”
“No. In general.”
“That’s good. What did you decide?”
“That we needed meat.”
“Well, should we go for the meat?”
“It’s a good time to start. If you’d like to walk.”
“I’d love to walk. When we come home we’ll have a bath and change and there will be the fire.”
We had found the herd of impala that were usually close to the road where it crossed the river and Mary had killed an old buck that had one horn. He was very fat and in good shape and my conscience was clear about taking him for meat, as he would never have provided the Game Department with a trophy to dispose of and, since he had been driven out of the herd, he was no use anymore for breeding. Mary had made a beautiful shot on him hitting him in the shoulder exactly where she had aimed. Charo was very proud of her and he had been able to butcher absolutely legally by perhaps a hundredth of a second. Mary’s shooting, by now, was regarded as completely in the hands of God and since we had different Gods, Charo took complete credit for the shot. Pop, G.C. and I had all seen Miss Mary come into perfect form shooting and make astounding and lovely shots. Now it was Charo’s turn.
“Memsahib piga mzuri sana,” Charo said.
“Mzuri. Mzuri,” Ngui told her.
“Thank you,” Mary said. “That’s three now,” she said to me. “I’m happy and confident now. It’s strange about shooting, isn’t it?”
I was thinking how strange it was and forgot to answer.
“It’s wicked to kill things. But it’s wonderful to have good meat in camp. When did meat get so important to everybody?”
“It always has been. It’s one of the oldest and most important things. Africa’s starved for it. But if they killed the game the way the Dutch did in South Africa there wouldn’t be any.”
“But do we keep the game for the natives? Who are we taking care of the game for, really?”
“For itself and to make money for the Game Department and keep the white hunting racket going and to make extra money for the Masai.”
“I love our protecting the game for the game itself,” Mary said. “But the rest of it is sort of shoddy.”
“It’s very mixed up,” I said. “But did you ever see a more mixed-up country?”
“No. But you and your mob are all mixed up too.”
“I know it.”
“But do you have it straight in your head yourself, really?”
“Not yet. We’re on a day-by-day basis now.”